34 Digital Marketing Tools and Services We Use To Grow Our Business – Part 1

Digital Marketing Tools and Services We Use to Grow our Business Online. (Part 1 of 3)

A lot of people have asked us what particular tools and services we use for our online business and for our digital marketing and it’s not an easy question to answer in a short amount of time because we use a lot of different tools for different things. I sat down and compiled a list of the tools and services that we use the most both with our own online businesses and clients’ businesses. Some of them are free services and software, and some are paid. In this post, I’ll cover the first 10.

We’ve tried and tested hundreds of different options, and these are the weapons we’re using in our digital marketing arsenal.

We’ve tried a lot of the different autoresponders out there and we think that ConvertKit is the best BY FAR! Why do we like it so much? Well, it has options for sequences and automation that GetResponse, Aweber, and SendLane DON’T have, and it is a million times easier to use than Infusionsoft.

Before we switched to ConvertKit, we had our email marketing funnels set up in Infusionsoft, and man was that a nightmare! If you want to learn how to use Infusionsoft correctly, you’d better have a lot of spare time and money to learn. You won’t find an Infusionsoft course for under a few thousand dollars! Infusionsoft is a good option for big businesses who can afford to hire an Infusionsoft specialist to work only on their email marketing funnels. If you’re not a large company with a massive marketing budget, then you DO NOT want Infusionsoft. ConvertKit can do everything we were doing in Infusionsoft and it’s incredibly easy to use. Check out how easy it is to send a broadcast with ConvertKit.

RWB is a very impressive, cloud-based software that lets you build and host sites very quickly and easily. Even people who have never made a website, or used WordPress before, have used RWB to build very professional looking websites. To get a brief idea of how easy it is, check out this video. You can build unlimited websites, with unlimited pages and bandwidth for just $5 a month or $50 a year! Since it includes hosting, you really can’t beat that deal! Also, I’ll let you in on a little secret, we use RWB to easily build websites for clients that we charge a lot of money for! Check out how easy it is with Rebel Website Builder

Ahhh Zapier, I’ve been a very big fan of Zapier for a long time now. Zapier can do so many things it really hard to know where to start. Basically, it can automate tasks for you and help integrate your different services and software with each other.For example, I have some plugins and software that are compatible with MailChimp, but not ConvertKit, so I use Zapier (which can link to both ConvertKit and MailChimp) to make ConvertKit compatible. I also have Zaps set up to automatically add new ConvertKit subscribers to different Google spreadsheets, and Zaps set up to automatically syndicate my social media and blog posts, and Zaps to link ConvertKit with Cyfe (which I’ll cover Cyfe later), and a whole lot more. You can get 5 Zaps on Zapier for free, and then after that it’s a $20 monthly fee (for 50 Zaps). I highly suggest checking out Zapier and IFTTT.

IFTTT (If This Then That) is another service we have been using for a long time now, and it works similar to Zapier in that it automates different tasks between different apps. One example of a IFTTT Recipe (now called Applet though I don’t know why they changed the name) that I have set up is “IF I make a Post on My Blog, it Automatically Gets Posted to My Facebook Page”. And another one is, “If I make an Instagram post, it will automatically be posted to my Twitter Account” You can use IFTTT recipes (make your own, or use a pre-made one) to do an incredible amount of things. It can even link with the GPS on your phone and do things like “If Leave My Office in the evening, send an SMS to my Wife that says “I’m on the way Home” or “If I get within 20 feet of my house at night, turn on the outside lights” The best thing for you to do is check it out for yourself. It’s 100% Free, so there’s nothing holding you back! We’ve got a course that teaches how to use IFTTT to automate your traffic and online presence (methods we’ve been using for Traffic for a few years now) You can use this link to get the course for 50% off (Hint: You can also make money by setting up automation for clients using IFTTT and Zapier)

Before, I had mentioned we use Rebel Website Builder to build websites and landing pages, but we also use Optimize Press for some sites. The reason for this is, Optimize Press has very good options for making membership websites, so anytime we have a website that will be a membership site, or require users to login, we use Optimize Press. Optimize Press is a WordPress theme, so if you don’t already have a WP website, you won’t be using Optimize Press.

At the moment we’re using both SamCart and ThriveCart as our shopping cart solutions. We’ve been using SamCart for a while now, but we’re changing over to ThriveCart gradually because ThriveCart was a one-time payment and SamCart is a monthly fee. Both SamCart and ThriveCart can be integrated with all the major autoresponders (including ConvertKit) and have the same features and options. We were able to get ThriveCart during a short promotion but it isn’t for sale to the public just yet, though it will be very soon, and you can go here to be notified when it’s released.

I discovered Cyfe not long ago and it was love at first sight (I was going to write “it was love at first Cyfe” but thought that was a bit too cheesy). I tried the free version of Cyfe for about 10 minutes before buying the full version. It can do a lot of things, but mainly it’s for tracking a lot of different data easily in one place. There are a ton of widgets that you can pick from, and then you just say what kind of data you want that widget to display. I have all of my social media insights and analytics, website analytics, sales transactions, Ad Spending and results, projects, Calendars, and SEO tracking in one place. I use Cyfe with clients as well because it has automatic report creation and mailing, plus it gives my clients their own links to live dashboards where they can see their stats, analytics and results LIVE anytime they want. It’s hard to describe how cool Cyfe is, so the best thing for you to do is go try the free version.

Both Shortstack and ThunderPenny allow you to create different types of Facebook Apps for your Facebook pages. You can build anything from a product page, to a landing page, to a video contest or a coupon giveaway. Not only are these great for making apps for yourself, BUT they’re also excellent for building and selling FB apps to Clients (selling FB apps is a big part of my business). If you want to learn how you can easily create FB Apps and find clients who are desperate for your services then check out this course where I teach how I do it. Use this link to get 50% Off!

If you go on our blog, or on our Udemy Course Sales Page, you’ll see a little popup that asks if you would like to “stay updated with what’s working online” (If you’ve already opted in to it, you won’t see it again) . That is from PushConnect Notify, and it enables us to send push notifications to people who opt in. Push notifications show up on people’s website browser as a notification, so it doesn’t matter what website they’re on, when I send a push notification, they’ll see it next time their website browser is open. We use both popups with lead magnets and PushConnect Notify on our blog, and we get an equal number of opt ins to both. Some people don’t like to give an email, and would prefer to just get browser notifications. So, having both options on your website (both the popup with a lead magnet and push notifications) will collect the maximum amount of leads possible.

Brian Gray

I love digital marketing and everything that comes with it.
Besides making money online, I'm also partner of a successful communications and digital marketing agency and my client list includes EU, UN, World Vision, Hennessy, Vespa, Corona Extra, Krispy Kreme, Canon, Total and Hyundai (just to name a few).
I was in the education sector for over 13 years, and I loved it, but then transitioned into digital marketing and eCommerce (more freedom when you work online). I realized I didn't want to give up teaching, so I decided to teach online.